It’s Not Just A Muslim Ban, It’s Much Worse

JASON REDMOND via Getty Images With a stroke of the pen on a misdirected and, I believe, malicious Executive Order (EO), President Donald Trump unleashed a dynamic that will, I fear, have consequences as far-reaching and damaging to my country and my community as the Bush Administration’s wrong-headed responses to the 9/11 terror attacks. What the various provisions of the EO have done is deepen Arab popular anger at the United States, provide ISIS with a public relations gift, fuel Islamophobic fear here at home, while, at the same time, exacerbating sectarian tensions within the Arab community. Suspending and placing restrictions on immigration and refugees from seven mostly Arab and Muslim-majority countries will not make America safer. The data is clear. Immigrants from the countries on the White House list have not posed a threat to the US. Those who have been excluded are largely either students, family members visiting their kin, or business people. And vulnerable refugees from these same countries who are now being denied admission are among the most rigorously vetted individuals coming to America—insuring that they pose no danger to our country. What the EO has, in fact, done is cancel the visas of between 60,000 to 100,000 individuals. It has also resulted in a nightmare situation for hundreds of innocents, caught on the cusp of the order’s implementation, who were detained at airports, interrogated for hours, and, in some instances, sent back to their countries of origin. This has produced deeply moving stories of separated families, broken promises, shattered dreams, and personal hurt that have intensified anti-American sentiment across the Middle East. After 9/11, in stark contrast to the widely held view that “Arabs hated our values,” our polling made clear that Arabs respected our people, our culture, our products, our country’s openness and tolerance, and the promise of our democracy. What they resented was our policy toward them. As one respondent noted—“I love America. I just feel that America doesn’t love me”. Despite our devastating war in Iraq, our anti-Palestinian bias, and our other failed policies across the region, what continued to hold hope for Arabs was that someday America would be true to its stated values. Trump’s Executive Order and the anti-Muslim rhetoric that accompanied it have shattered that hope. ISIS must be pleased. Administration protests that the EO is not “a Muslim ban” doesn’t pass the smell test. Granted that the freeze only includes seven countries but the rhetoric used to describe the intent of the order has been clearly inspired by the anti-Muslim animus of a White House populated by a group with individuals with a long record of Islamophobia. The language they have used to make the case for the order has been taken directly from the writings of well-known Islamophobes. In any case, this is how Trump’s supporters have been encouraged to understand the EO’s intent. Added to this are stories circulating that the list will soon be expanded to include many more Muslim-majority countries, among them: Lebanon, Egypt, […]

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